Competition Preparation

Month: June 2017

Training partners & communication. You need to put yourself in a situation where someone will push you. Alex wanted 405 on squats, I made him go 435 after he smoked 405. Sam might’ve stayed at 185 on Snatches Friday, I pushed him to 200 and got him out of his comfort zone. Chris checked in on me daily, ensuring I was staying gearless…came back on Saturday to make sure I was snatching in nanos, then came in on Sunday after the Seminar just to drag sleds with me for a bit so the day wasn’t a loss.We all need each other to pull this off – Hold someone else accountable each and everyday.

When something says “Max Effort” – That means max effort. Class or extra, every single piece needs to be attacked with intention. I don’t feel that was the case last week and I’ve had to question some of our groups effort. I find questioning that to be unacceptable. A few things that should never be questioned: Your commitment, your effort, your attitude.

Evaluate and be self-aware. Look back over your tests and workouts – Everyday should have some reflection with it. And each day that reflection should strengthen your resolve to your goal. If your reflections show that your actions aren’t meeting your goals, change your goals or adjust your actions. You’ve probably seen that quote changed around a million times, yet the lack of self-awareness in our society leads people down a path that is adverse to change, or acceptance of their current state.

Some of you are doing an amazing job owning your own training, hitting the things you need to on your off days and extra time, committing to intentioned training and practice. I was very pleased to see the rest/recovery days utilized more wisely this week. We get Omar the Motivator and energy giver back this week from Ramadan, so please reach out to him to ensure his week goes well and he’s able to have training partners as he comes back into the group.

Lastly, everyone’s goal (HOMEWORK) this week is to engage a new member of the week this week, learn about their life, job, family, hobbies and encourage them to do something beneficial with you at a later day. I.e. last week JC and I discussed his next month and what it will entail for him, what makes him nervous about going to Toledo for a month, and then invited him to do a 2k Warm-up w/ push-up warm-up with me. Engage others, bring them along for the ride, it will always pay itself back to you 10-fold. I want to hear about it, write it in comments, text it to me, or share it with me in person.

Alright guys, if you adjust your focus to BTWB you have been added into your Tiers for extra training. If you “opt out” of that, or click off Tier 2 then you will be removed from the list and not see the training so please don’t do that! It will show up for you on your BTWB timeline on the day it is programmed – let me know if you have questions.

Class is starting their second Cycle of this season, but for many of you who were doing regionals/other comps or taking some leisure time after the Open this will be the first one you can really bite into. Do not miss days, do not come unprepared to train, bring zero negativity into the space of our gym. This is the most important time to improve of the whole season. You are rebuilding yourself structurally, making yourself bulletproof for the volume that will come later, and falling back in love with having fun with CrossFit, in class, with friends, and just throwing down on hot summer days!

Sign-up for seminars, get involved with a club, LEARN, find (maybe) one competition to compete in this season, but the rest of your focus should be on improving yourself and enjoying each day. We will “compete” in the gym at the beginning and end of each cycle, that should be plenty for you until you start dominating every strength day, and every metcon day, with fully legit reps and count (good luck).

Tier 1:

Once per week you will have a girl workout broken up into intervals. Your goal will be to hit the intervals with maximum intensity and post results. Your goal is to hit 5 days/week of class, and scale class accordingly so that you are one of (if not the) top time of the day. If you’re a guy that might mean doing Fran at 45lbs, but the goal is to learn how to keep the pedal pushed down, not how to struggle through broken sets.

Tier 2:

Tuesdays and Fridays will have extra work — For those of you prioritizing Endurance I would think about adding Endurance workout from Tuesday into your Thursday training program and from Friday into your Sunday active recovery day 2/4 weeks each month – Both endurance/recovery days should also include some rehab work, stretching/mobility and light skill work (i.e. empty bar snatching, moving). This will put you 6-7x/week, but if nutrition/sleep and the other things we’ve discussed are dialed in you’ll be fine (since Endurance work can be recovery work, and most of you are like 21 years old).

Extra work for Tier 2 will be a combination of Monostructural (row/bike/run/DU) and skill or mono/barbell suck fests. Traditionally all of the barbell suck fests will be designed to be at a threshold of unbroken, and the only factor of how well you do is how hard you’re willing to go on the rower/airdyne/run. So basically your own mental capacity is your only limiting factor. The skill work will obviously be different, but the goal is to ensure that you’re improving your skills at a high heart rate.

You should have a list of 5-7 things you want to practice. Your warm-up before the class warm-up should touch on at least one of those things each day, and your recovery days should hit at least 2-3. That means if you struggle with kipping HSPU you should be practicing them a minimum of 2x/week, and likely training them one more time.